Following last night’s UFC On ESPN 38 event in Las Vegas the recipients of the evening’s $50,000 bonus awards were announced.
Earning ‘Fight Of The Night’ honors was the excellent, high-level display of MMA put on by Mateusz Gamrot and Arman Tsarukyan in the main event.
The grappling exchanges in particular between these two were stunning to watch in the early rounds as they engaged in lightning-fast scrambles and transitions, with neither seemingly able to gain the upper-hand. That led to competitive striking exchanges on the feet too, with Tsarukyan seeming to have a slight edge in that department, landing numerous heavy body kicks over the course of the fight, while Gamrot did land some damaging blows too.
However, in the later rounds, while the action remained competitive it was Gamrot who started to find some success with some takedowns, and while he wasn’t able to fully get the crafty Tsarukyan under control for long it helped shift the momentum in his favor and may well have been why he emerged with a unanimous decision victory (48-47 x3).
Three ‘Performance Of The Night’ bonuses were also awarded and co-main event winner Shavkat Rakhmonov took home one of them after showing he’s more than able to handle a step-up in competition, controlling Neil Magny for extended periods on the mat and then finding a guillotine choke that forced the veteran to tap out just a couple of seconds before the end of the second round.
Thiago Moises also scooped up a bonus for his first round submission finish against Christos Giagos, catching him in a standing rear-naked choke a little over three minutes into the fight.
Josh Parisian also bolstered his bank balance with a bonus after he suffered early adversity against Alan Baudot, only to then dig deep and turn the screw in the second round with takedowns and ground-and-pound to seal a TKO stoppage win.
